Leonard Woolf was born in London as the son of a barrister. He studied at Cambridge where he was a contemporary of
Clive Bell and
Lytton Strachey. In 1904 he went into civil service to Ceylon. He gave this up in 1911 shortly after marrying Virginia.

From 1923 to 1930 he was a literary editor on the Nation. In 1917 with Virginia, he set up Hogarth Press which published, among other things, Freud, E.M.Forster, T.S.Eliot and Vita Sackwille-West. He worked as its director until his death.

Among Leonard Woolf's works are novels, non-fiction, and his five volume memoirs Sowing (1960), Growing (1961), Beginning Again
(1964), Downhill All the Way (1967), and
The Journey Not the Arrival Matters (1969).

He was at varying times in his life a literary editor, journalist, political writer active in promoting the League of Nations and on various Labour Party committees.